Studies on an organic electroluminescent (EL) device have continued to blue electric light emission using an anthracene single crystal in 1965, and then an organic electroluminescent device having a two-layer laminated structure, which is composed of a hole layer (NPB) and a light emitting layer (Alq3), was proposed by Tang in 1987. Since then, the organic electroluminescent device has been proposed in the form of a multilayer-laminated structure which imparts each characteristic and subdivided function, such as an organic layer which is responsible for injecting and transporting holes, an organic layer which is responsible for injecting and transporting electrons, and an organic layer which induces electroluminescence to occur due to the combination of holes and electrons in the device in order to implement high efficiency and long lifetime characteristics required for commercialization. The introduction of a multilayer-laminated structure improved the performance of the organic electroluminescent device to the level of commercialization characteristics, thereby expanding the application range of the multilayer-laminated structure from the start of a radio display product for a vehicle in 1997 to a mobile information display device and a display device for TV.
The demand for enlargement and high resolution of a display imposes challenges of high efficiency and long lifetime on an organic electroluminescent device. In particular, the high resolution implemented by forming a larger number of pixels in the same area incurs a result of decreasing the light emitting area of the organic electroluminescent pixel, thereby reducing the lifetime, which has become the most important technical challenge which the organic electroluminescent device needs to overcome.
In the organic electroluminescent device, when current or voltage is applied to two electrodes, holes are injected into an organic material layer at the anode, and electrons are injected into an organic material layer at the cathode. When the injected holes and electrons meet each other, an exciton is formed, and the exciton falls down to a bottom state to emit light. In this case, the organic electroluminescent device may be classified into a fluorescent electroluminescent device in which singlet excitons contribute to light emission and a phosphorescent electroluminescent device in which triplet excitons contribute to light emission according to the type of electron spin of the excitons formed.
In the electron spins of the excitons formed by recombining electrons and holes, the singlet exciton and the triplet exciton are produced at a ratio of 25% and 75%. In the fluorescent electroluminescent device in which light is emitted by singlet excitons, it is impossible for the internal quantum efficiency to theoretically exceed 25% according to the production ratio, and the external quantum efficiency of 5% is accepted as the limitation. In the phosphorescent electroluminescent device in which light is emitted by triplet excitons, when a metal complex compound including a transition metal heavy atom such as Ir and Pt is used as a phosphorescent dopant, the light emitting efficiency may be improved up to 4 times compared to the fluorescent electroluminescent device.
As described above, the phosphorescent electroluminescent device exhibits higher efficiency in terms of light emitting efficiency than the fluorescent electroluminescent device based on theoretical facts, but in a blue phosphorescent device except for green and red phosphorescent devices, the development level for the color purity of the deep blue color, a phosphorescent dopant with high efficiency, and a host with a wide energy gap, which satisfies the requirements, is so minimal that the blue phosphorescent device has not been commercialized up to now, and a blue fluorescent device is used for products.
In order to improve characteristics of the organic electroluminescent device, study results for enhancing stability of the device by preventing holes from diffusing into an electron transferring layer have been reported. There has been proposed a technology in which a material such as BCP or BPhen is used between a light emitting layer and an electron transferring layer to prevent holes from diffusing into the electron transferring layer, and a probability of recombining holes and electrons is effectively increased by limiting the diffusion into the inside of the light emitting layer. However, in derivatives such as BCP or BPhen, oxidation stability for holes deteriorates and durability for heat is weak, and accordingly, the lifetime of the organic electroluminescent device is decreased, and the commercialization is not achieved. Further, these materials simply serve to block holes and thus inhibit electrons from moving, thereby increasing the driving voltage of the organic electroluminescent device.